Yesterday’s three-hour summer study group should have been about grades. That’s what summer study groups are usually about: okay, Mr. Shit, am I saying that right, I got this summer reading assignment that, like, I don’t really get but is it still possible for me to get an A. Because I never got a B before except for in, like, science but that’s hard, you know? Not like English. So is this good enough?
But yesterday’s three-hour summer study group was not about grades. It was about Plato.
The two people who were on time, plus the four others who showed late, all wanted to talk about, like, you know. Plato.
Who they totally didn’t get because he was, like sort of boring but not really that it’s just not really their thing, you know, reading this because why does he have all these questions that aren’t really questions and who is he talking to anyways.
So begins the first meaningful discussion of allegory or symbolism that any of them have had in, you know, quite a while. And slowly, painfully, they read aloud one sentence, one word at a time and learn that you don’t skip over words you don’t, like, know–not when you’re reading Plato because if you miss a word then you miss everythingand, as we all learned in paragraph three, you don’t want to miss this.
“They are strange prisoners said Glaucon like ourselves I replied and”–Stop. Read that again. With the periods this time.
“They are strange prisoners said Glaucon. Like ourselves, I replied.” WAIT. Like who? Who he means.
So the people in the cave. That see just shadows. It’s like, us.
Whoa. So like, when you’ve got your ipod on and you can’t hear anything around you except that same song you’ve listened to, like, a lot already and you know all the words but never thought about them before because it’s like just a song.
Or like, when, you know, you always thought something was true because it’s like bias, you know what I’m saying? But your parents taught it to you but you never really thought about it that way? Because it’s not like you want to disrespect them? But like they’re so wrong, you know, and so are you but it’s hard to see that when that’s all you ever knew was that.
And so like there’s this one guy that goes up and sees the light is, like, what? Lightened. And he gets it but nobody else gets it cause they’re still in the cave.
Wait–like, this guy was killed or something? Socrates.
“Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to lose–”
Loose.
“another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.”
And who else do we know who was killed or threatened with death for trying to bring people into the light–or just for expressing unpopular ideas?
Wait, so it’s like Jesus Christ or something.
Yes…
And Martin Luther King.
Okay…
And Biggie?
No.
Well it’s like, I mean, there’s more?
Write down the following names (mildly amused teacher, careful to preserve his look of exasperation, writes down: Mohandas Gandhi; Theo Van Gogh; Ayaan Hirsi Ali; Salman Rushdie) and look them up on the internet tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow.
Wait. They killed Gandhi? When?
I think it was with that suicide bomb last year, remember? In the car?
schmiddty
